K-Pop Korner: Hot Issue

November 11, 2009

It’s easy to mock K-Pop, effortless. One can do it with one’s eyes closed, hands tied behind one’s back or in the manner of K-Pop being like fish collected in a barrel and one being handed a gun with which to shoot them. Easy shit, son, and therefore poor sport. A real challenge would be being enough of a man to admit to everyone that you occasionally like one or two K-Pop offerings here and there. It would take epic heroism and an abundance of sack, iron cojones no less, to discuss a K-Pop song that actually got your toe tapping with approval.

And with that…….

4 Minute

4 Minute have only been around since June this year when their debut single, “Hot Issue”, was released. I erroneously believed that this song had something to do with a Korean performer named Hari-su whose name was chosen to deliberately sound like the English phrase “hot issue”. Hari-su is actually Korea’s first celebrity transsexual but I’ll probably reserve any further discussion of her for a future blog entry. She has no connection to the girl group 4 Minute. 4 Minute are a fairly typical manufactured pop act coming out of the K-Pop stable of JYP Entertainment. That said, “Hot Issue” conveys a bit more attitude and sass than the usual Korean pop tune with the girls declaring unapologetically in the chorus to the song that “from my head to my toe I’m a hot issue”. I found it fairly enjoyable; perhaps because the first few times I heard it I was on a treadmill in a state of semi-exhaustion, I couldn’t say for sure. The video for the debut single is below.